Why I'm Running

Leave it better than you found it

We moved to Montclair in 2009. With our second child on the way, we needed more room and something more predictable than New York City's educational gauntlet. Montclair was the obvious choice. My wife Jen Dorr grew up here. Her parents were still here, and the thought of just being able to send your children to a school you could rely on was incredibly appealing.

Our kids went to the same schools as Jen and her family -- Nishuane, Hillside, Glenfield, and the high school. Our son even had Mr. Gill -- just like Jen and her siblings. Since then, our oldest has graduated and moved on to college, and our youngest is now a senior, rowing crew, and focused on what life in California will be like after he graduates.

The Montclair Public School District has been great for us. But it hasn't always been great for everyone, and the fiscal crisis has made it even more difficult for Montclair. Invoices stuffed in drawers. Creditors at the gate. Everyone lost teachers. Some lost a school.

My background is in data, finance and technology. I run an analytics business called Symmetric, and I curate a network of NYC CFOs called the CFO Roundtable. Before that I was entrepreneur in residence at Ernst & Young. When the fiscal crisis broke, I turned these skills towards school budgets, created a database of every school budget in New Jersey and published my findings on spending and state and federal funding in the Local. I've also carried it forward with a simple online tool that any school district or parent can use to understand where they stand when compared to state and county averages: njschoolinsights.com.

I'm running because Montclair has been good to my family, and achievement should be available to everyone. I'm running because the fiscal crisis has made our community more vulnerable than ever, so we need to be more transparent than ever. I'm running because I want to bring my skills and experience to leave the school district better than we found it.